As such, the content overlaps greatly. Here's the Wikipedia entry on 300 Spartans.
The 300 Spartans is a 1962 Cinemascope film depicting the Battle of Thermopylae. Made with the cooperation of the Greek government, it was shot in the village of Perachora in the Peloponnese. It starred Richard Egan as the Spartan king Leonidas, Ralph Richardson as Themistocles of Athens and David Farrar as Persian king Xerxes, with Diane Baker as Ellas and Barry Coe as Phylon providing the requisite romantic element in the film. In the film, a force of Greek warriors led by 300 Spartans fights against a Persian army of almost limitless size. Despite the odds, the Spartans will not flee or surrender, even if it means their deaths.
The picture was noted for its Cold War overtones,[1] referring to the independent Greek states as "the only stronghold of freedom remaining in the then known world", holding out against the Persian "slave empire".
Frank Miller saw this movie as a boy and said "it changed the course of my creative life".[2] His graphic novel 300 is about the Battle of Thermopylae, and was the basis for the 2007 film 300.
It's a pretty ghastly film by our contemporary standards. The writing and directing is totally out of date and I sort of wonder if it was considered any good even by its own times' standards. it's not clear from the Wikipedia page.
Here's the entry on the graphic novel. by Frank Miller. It has this interesting tidbit:
Renowned comics writer Alan Moore has criticized 300 as historically inaccurate, with particular reference to the characters' attitudes towards homosexuality:
There was just one particular line in it where one of the Spartan soldiers—I'll remind you, this is Spartans that we're talking about—one of them was talking disparagingly about the Athenians, and said, ‘Those boy-lovers.' You know, I mean, read a book, Frank. The Spartans were famous for something other than holding the bridge at Thermopylae, they were quite famous for actually enforcing man-boy love amongst the ranks as a way of military bonding. That specific example probably says more about Frank's grasp of history than it does about his grasp of homosexuality, so I'm not impugning his moral situation there. I'm not saying it was homophobic; just wasn't very well researched.[3]
Miller, in the letters page of the series, replied to accusations of homophobia from a reader regarding the phrase "Those boy-lovers":
If I allowed my characters to express only my own attitudes and beliefs, my work would be pretty darn boring. If I wrote to please grievance groups, my work would be propaganda. For the record: being a warrior class, the Spartans almost certainly did practice homosexuality. There's also evidence they tended to lie about it. It's not a big leap to postulate that they ridiculed their hedonistic Athenian rivals for something they themselves did. "Hypocrisy" is, after all, a word we got from the Greeks. What's next? A letter claiming that, since the Spartans owned slaves and beat their young, I do the same? The times we live in.[4]
Reviewer Aaron Albert notes that although "Miller does take liberties with the history", he considers it more of a "theatrical portrayal" rather than a "historical battle". He notes the passion evident in Miller's writing. He praised the visuals; especially the use of over-sized panels. Lynn Varley's painting was also commended. [5]
So there's that to ponder. The '300' film entry is here. This bit was interesting:
Reviews
Since its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2007, in front of 1,700 audience members, 300 has received generally mixed reviews. While it received a standing ovation at the public premiere,[58] it was reportedly panned at a press screening hours earlier, where many attendees left during the showing and those who remained booed at the end.[59] Critical reviews of 300 are divided.[60] Rotten Tomatoes reports that 60 percent of North American and selected international critics gave the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 214, with an average score of 6.1 out of 10.[61] Reviews from selected notable critics were 47 percent positive, giving the film an average score of 5.7 out of 10 based on a sample of 38.[62] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 51 based on 35 reviews.[60]
Variety's Todd McCarthy describes the film as "visually arresting" although "bombastic"[63] while Kirk Honeycutt, writing in The Hollywood Reporter, praises the "beauty of its topography, colors and forms."[64] Writing in the Chicago Sun Times, Richard Roeper acclaims 300 as "the Citizen Kane of cinematic graphic novels."[65] 300 was also warmly received by websites focusing on comics and video games. Comic Book Resources' Mark Cronan found the film compelling, leaving him "with a feeling of power, from having been witness to something grand."[66] IGN's Todd Gilchrist acclaimed Zack Snyder as a cinematic visionary and "a possible redeemer of modern moviemaking."[67]
A number of critical reviews appeared in major American newspapers. A.O. Scott of the New York Times describes 300 as "about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid," while criticizing its color scheme and suggesting that its plot includes racist undertones.[68] Kenneth Turan writes in the Los Angeles Times that "unless you love violence as much as a Spartan, Quentin Tarantino or a video-game-playing teenage boy, you will not be endlessly fascinated."[69] Roger Ebert, in his review, gave the film a two-star rating, writing, "300 has one-dimensional caricatures who talk like professional wrestlers plugging their next feud."[70]
Some Greek newspapers have been particularly critical, such as film critic Robby Eksiel, who said that moviegoers would be dazzled by the "digital action" but irritated by the "pompous interpretations and one-dimensional characters."[55][71]
It's been a while since I've checked the page and hadn't seen the reviews section had grown. The Controversy section also makes for interesting reading. I liked this bit:
The film's portrayal of ancient Persians caused a particularly strong reaction in Iran.[102] Azadeh Moaveni of Time reported that Tehran was "outraged" following the film's release. Moaveni identified two factors which may have contributed to the intense reaction: its release on the eve of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and the common Iranian view of the Achaemenid Empire as "a particularly noble page in their history."[103][104][105] Various Iranian officials condemned the film.[106][107][108][109] The Iranian Academy of the Arts submitted a formal complaint against the movie to UNESCO, labelling it an attack on the historical identity of Iran.[110][111] The Iranian mission to the U.N. protested the film in a press release,[112] and Iranian embassies protested its screening in France,[113] Thailand,[114] Turkey[115] and Uzbekistan.[116]
Slovenian philosopher and author Slavoj Žižek defended the movie, from those who attacked it as an example of "the worst kind of patriotic militarism with clear allusions to recent tensions with Iran and Iraq." He wrote that the story represents "a poor, small country (Greece) invaded by the army of a much large[r] state (Persia)," suggesting that the identification of the Spartans with a modern superpower is flawed. Instead of seeing a "fundamentalist" aspect in the Spartan identity, he stated that "all modern egalitarian radicals, from Rousseau to the Jacobins...imagined the republican France as a new Sparta."[117]
And Warner Bros' defense is, it's" a work of fiction" and "loosely based on a historic event". I think Leonidas and his 300 Spartans might want to say something about that.
The parody 'Meet The Spartans' has this page.
The film received almost universally negative reviews from critics. As of May 19, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 2% of all critics gave the film positive reviews and 0% positive reviews from top critics based on 41 reviews with an average rating of 1.8/10; citing consensus opinion on the title as "A tired, unfunny, offensive waste of time ... [which] scrapes the bottom of the cinematic barrel."[2] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 9 out of 100, based on 11 reviews — indicating "extreme dislike or disgust" and being the worst received film by the director on the site.[3]
One reviewer in Scotland's The Sunday Herald gave the film a score of zero, as did Ireland's Day and Night while an Australian newspaper review described it as being "as funny as a burning orphanage". In London, The Times reviewer Wendy Ide suggested that the producers of the film were not aiming for 'laughs' but "a simian grunt of recognition from an audience that must have been practically brain-dead to fork out £10 to see a film that can’t even master the concept of out-takes?". This film was the lowest-rated of the 2008 film season.
Ha.
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